5 1 - Circles
by Bubbletrix
Summary: The one time Q circled a date on the calendar and the one time Bond did it for him. 5 1 with beginnings of 00Q.


5.

It happened so quickly, Q could barely believe it.

"002, you're needed at Headquarters."

"Sure thing, Q."

Q should've thought of the peak hour traffic, he should've made all their agents get their cars tested, he should've been watching 002 drive through the CCTV cams, he should've ordered him to put his ear-piece in before he left the house, he should've, he should've, he should've…

But you didn't, Q reminded himself, as a grinning 002 left his office with his arm in a cast.

He broke his arm because you didn't think.

Q got up slowly and drew a red circle around today's date on his year-long calendar.

From now on, you'll think.

4.

"009, get out now!"

"I need to get this info, Q."

"They're going to blow the building, abort mission!"

"OK, I've got it! Where do I go?"

Q directed him down the corridors, blocking the doors between him and the blast, mentally calculating the blast radius. 009 got two thirds through the building before he was lifted off his feet and thrown into a wall.

"009… 009!"

It took five agonising minutes for the agent to roll over and grown.

"Sitrep, now!"

009 breathed in and winced.

"Concussion, couple of cracked ribs, probably. Cut on my arm. Basically nothing. Where do I go?"

009 was home in under ten hours.

Q didn't sleep for four days.

No one noticed the new circle on the calendar.

3.

It was the dirty trick of a copycat artist. Someone who'd heard about the Silva catastrophe and decided he liked the style. Unfortunately for Q, this person's coding abilities almost equalled his own. Q ignored tea and food, ignored Moneypenny and M, ignored R, ignored everything as he typed for hours on end, cracking the attacker's codes, and throwing up firewalls in return.

Finally Q sat back and stretched, cracking his fingers.

"Is it done, sir?" R asked timidly. Q looked at her and accepted the hot tea.

"He gave up. I'm tracking his location no-"

A burst of noise echoed around Q-Branch and Q jumped from his chair, swearing fluently in three languages as a video loaded onto his computer.

"Get 008 out now!"

"Sir?"

"Her cover's blown! Do it!"

A couple of scrapes later, 008 was back in London, feeling much happier in the rain than she'd been in the desert.

Q closed his office door and sank to the ground.

So close. It had been so close this time.

He drew another red circle, his hand shaking.

2.

"So you'll need to press the button three times to get it to activate it, otherwise it'll just switch itself off again, OK? Three times. Bond? Bond. Are you even listening?"

007 eyes flicked back to his Quartermaster's face.

"Three times. And why are there circles on your calendar?"

"Good, and after that you'll have approximately twenty seconds to throw it. Please remember that it's a ten metre blast radius, so overestimate rather than under."

"Circles, Q."

"What?"

"Why are there circles on your calendar? There are three," Bond said, pointing to them, frowning.

Q only paused for a second.

"Personal reasons. Anyway, twenty seconds…"

Q forgot that it only took a second to ignite a 00's curiosity.

"Sir," R said, sticking her head through the door. "004's just gone offline."

Bond noticed how Q's face paled slightly.

"Start Protocol 110, I'll be out in a second."

Bond dutifully listened to the rest of Q's lecture. When it was done, he was dismissed and Q marched out to take over the search for 004. Bond went to the door, but then leaned against the wall, blending into the back of the room. Q was amazing when he took control of chaos. A few words here, a murmur there and everyone was working at double the speed and efficiency. Bond marvelled at his Quartermaster's composure. It took three hours until 004 came back online and Bond could hear the wet gasps that came from Q's speakers.

"004, checking in," the rough voice dissolved into a coughing fit.

"Q here. Sitrep, and your location, please."

"They got me, Q. Sorry, I was trying to get out without turning on the radio. They… I'm not in my best shape."

"It's OK, 004, we'll figure it out. But I need a sitrep and your location. Your tracker's still offline."

"They dug it out. I hope my tetanus is up to date. Three broken fingers and blood loss. Everything's gone a little dark but I don't know if that's the concussion or something's wrong with my eyes. I'm in the East Hall of the main building at the moment. I'm trying to get outside."

The line of tension that ran through Q's shoulders was almost tangible.

"OK, keep heading North, we'll get a med evac right away. How are you walking?"

"By pure stubbornness."

"Good man. If you need to stop, let me know and I'll send the team into the building. They'll be there in thirteen minutes. Have you put pressure on any bleeding?"

"As much as I can, Q, but I don't want to be found."

Q stayed on the line until the evacuation team had taken 004 into their custody and he'd spoken with the head of the Medical Unit. Bond watched as Q finally waved at R to take the floor and headed for his office, shutting the door behind him.

It was two months until he was back in Q-Branch again, but he immediately noticed a new circle on the calendar.

1.

Everyone heard about it, mostly because it wasn't some dramatic show-down that the double-0's normally wound up in. It was a simple assassination mission, only it wasn't for MI6. 001 was in a normal bar in London on a Tuesday evening when a sniper-shot ricocheted through the streets. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Q didn't stop until the found the culprits, and until they were dead or dying. People hovered around Q-Branch, not quite daring to enter, but unable to pull themselves away from the wrath that had settled around the Quartermaster. He didn't sleep, that was normal. He didn't eat, that was OK. He drank tea by the gallon, and by the seventh day, everyone was convinced that it was the only thing keeping him alive. As soon as the last of the attackers were dealt with, Q had simply shut himself in his office, turned off the lights, and slept for sixteen hours. No one saw him draw another circle around the day 001 died.

No one thought anything of it when he worked for another week straight, until he collapsed and woke up on his couch in his office with his glasses on the table next to him. Some people looked worried when it happened again the next week. Moneypenny came down and tried to talk to him when it happened for a third time, but Q was manic. His hair was permanently in 'mad-scientist' mode and he had to layer on clothes to stop himself from freezing. He swayed on his feet, and leant against the nearest solid surface if he thought people weren't looking. When he collapsed for the fourth week in a row, he woke up in his own bed, in his apartment. He sighed before getting to his feet and going into the bathroom. As hot water ran down his back, he planned what tasks he could get done at work that day, thinking of anything that would stop him from sleeping. Anything that would save him from the dreams of endless red circles, dripping with blood.

0.

Q opened the door to Q-Branch and nodded at his minions before he paused. They are looked… skittish.

"What's happened?"

R was the one who finally answered.

"007's back from his mission."

That didn't answer his question.

"What's happened? Is he hurt? What went wrong?"

"Nothing sir," R said, a little too quickly. "It's just… He went into your office, shut the door, and hasn't let anyone in for the past twelve hours."

Q raised an eyebrow before marching towards his office, not bothering to knock and trying hard not to slam the door behind him.

His office looked like a tornado had been through it. Papers were scattered everywhere. They had been pinned to the walls, even creeping up into the ceiling, carpeted his floor, covered his computer and looked like they were trying to drown his desk. Bond was sitting in the middle of the disorder with Q's calendar on the ground in front of him.

It took a moment for Q to find his voice.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, Bond?!"

Bond ignored the question, instead pointing to the most recent of the circles.

"That was the day 004 was shot down. When I first saw it, when I returned only to be told you'd been literally working yourself to death for a month, I thought it was merely coincidence. So I looked at the one before that. It's the date that 004 got out of the torture situation."

Q tried to interrupt, but Bond pressed on.

"The one before that happens to be the day 008's cover was blown, the one she escaped from smoothly. The next one was 009's mission where the bomb blew."

He arched an eyebrow up at Q, who was frozen against the door.

"I didn't know what to think. What were these events to you? Equipment that didn't come back? But then I looked at the last one, and the only thing I can find that happened on that day was 002 breaking his arm in a stupid rear-end crash driving to work. I asked you what those circles meant almost two years ago, Q. You told me they were personal. I'm not often wrong when I think someone's lying, but I was, then, wasn't I?"

Bond stood up, the last of the papers fluttering to the ground.

"You honestly can't imagine what it means to the agents that you're there on the line with them, with us. The amount of scrapes you've pulled me out is nothing compared so some of the other agents, I know. You don't leave us when something goes wrong, even when there's a high chance we might die, and that's no small comfort to us, to me. You care about us. And you're the only one."

Bond stood in front of Q, whose teeth had sunk into his lip. He looked terrified and Bond almost resisted the urge to wrap his arms around him. Almost.

Q leant against his chest, listening to the heartbeat that had nearly stopped so many times. He didn't know what to do. His secret was out. Sentiment didn't benefit anyone. What was Bond going to do?

"We need you," Bond whispered in his ear. "But we need you 100%. And not only does that include eating and sleeping, but also that you can't blame yourself when someone screws up. It might be us, it might be intelligence, hell, it might even be you. People get hurt, and they die. But we need you with us. 100%."

Bond stepped back and released Q, lifting the calendar back onto the wall and plucking a pen out of his pocket.

"So, from this day on," he said, circling today's date in blue. "You'll know. You look after us so well, Q. Look after yourself, as well."

Q looked so small, and so incredibly lost, it reminded Bond how much younger the man really was than him. He reached out and took his hand, warming the cold skin.

"Now, do you like Mediterranean? There's a great restaurant just round the corner. You can't say no, by the way. I've already made the bookings." Bond stepped around Q to open the door, but Q hesitated.

"License to kill, Q," Bond reminded him, giving him a soft smile. "Come on, let's go eat."

Q followed him through an astounded, but grateful, Q-branch and into his car. That night he laughed more than he had in a long time, for once not thinking of the five red circles. And when he fell asleep in James's arms that night, he dreamt of a singular blue one, instead.


End file.
